“I noticed.”
After a long moment, Mary drew in a breath, then said, “I’ve been wondering if we’ve leapt to the wrong conclusion.”
Ryder’s gaze shifted to fix on her. “How so?”
“We assumed that whoever tried to have you killed in London is also behind these incidents aimed at me, but when you look at what’s happened here—an adder in my bed, gorse under my saddle, caltrops in the road when I went out driving, and now the scorpion—while each of those incidents might have been fatal, the chances of them being so aren’t all that high.” She met his gaze. “Against that, getting stabbed almost in your heart is far more likely to be lethal.”
He frowned. After a moment said, “I can’t argue, but I’m not sure I follow where you’re leading.”
“What if the incidents here weren’t intended to do me harm so much as send me scurrying off, and potentially disrupting our marriage?”
His frown darkened. “That’s possible, I suppose.”
“It does bear considering, and also casts the incidents here in a somewhat less fraught light.”
Ryder humphed.
Mary watched him sip his brandy and hoped he was imbibing her obliquely reassuring words as completely. The principal reason for her increasing ire at whoever was behind the recent incidents was that the outcome of said incidents was feeding and stoking and insistently escalating Ryder’s protectiveness. He’d several times verged on the dictatorial and was becoming less and less pliable with every successive incident—and really, who could blame him?
Said incidents were prodding at a spot that—if all was as she hoped—would be terribly sensitive.
In fact, that he was reacting as he was was proof that what she’d hoped from the first would evolve between them was developing exactly as she wished. Yet she knew from experience with the males in her family just how entrenched such overprotective feelings in men like him could grow to be, and he was, indeed, a classic example of that type of male.
“I suggest,” she said before he could suggest something else, “that I remain within the house or the immediate grounds for the next few days, and with everyone on alert, let’s see what comes. With luck, we might catch whoever it is next time they try to creep inside.”
Ryder grunted, but he didn’t disagree, and she was content enough with that.
“Meanwhile,” she continued, “perhaps we can consult with Barnaby and Penelope, and also widen our search for someone in the ton who might wish you ill.”
“Hmm.” Ryder drained his glass, then rose. “I’ll draft a letter to Adair now.” He glanced down at her. “I trust you’ll want to add a note to Penelope?”
She nodded. “Yes—you write, and I’ll add it at the end.” After she’d read what he’d written.
While he crossed to the desk, she viewed her current strategy; keeping them both busy doing whatever they could to identify whoever was behind the spate of attacks while simultaneously doing everything she could to avoid further incidents seemed indubitably wise.
He
and she had come so far; she was not of a mind to allow some villain to pull apart all they’d achieved.
“So she’s still alive?”
“Yes. Caught sight of her this morning strolling on the terrace.”
“This isn’t good enough. You told me you could manage it.”
“I can, easily enough, but you insisted it had to look like an accident. There’s only so many ways that can possibly be done, and in every case—as she and his lordship have proved—there’s always a chance death won’t be the result.”
“Damn him! He’s always had the devil’s own luck, and now she, it seems, is just as favored.”
“That may be so, but if you want my advice, if you truly want them removed, you’re going to have to allow us to try something more direct and definite. Something certain of working, once and for all.”
A long silence ensued, then, “What do you have in mind?”
Chapter Fourteen
A week passed in untrammeled peace.
“Finally.” Strolling into the gallery on the way to the drawing room prior to dinner, Mary paused to draw in a deep breath, then let it out on a happy sigh. She listened; letting her senses expand, she detected the expected scurrying of footmen in the dining room and Forsythe’s majestic tread. Everything seemed calm, nothing out of place.